Characteristics of the Pre-DevOps Era

Understand the key characteristics of the pre-DevOps era, including the challenges and limitations of traditional IT operations.

The pre-DevOps era in software development was a starkly different landscape than what we see today. It was a time of siloed teams, rigid methodologies, and a lot of manual work, which often led to slow and unreliable software delivery.

  • Waterfall Model The dominant methodology was the Waterfall model, a linear approach where each stage had to be completed before moving on to the next. This made it difficult to adapt to changes and respond quickly to new requirements.
  • Siloed Teams Developers, testers, and operations teams worked independently, often with little communication or collaboration. This created a “throw it over the wall” mentality, where each team blamed the other for problems.
  • Manual Processes Most tasks, from testing to deployment, were done manually. This was time-consuming and error-prone, leading to delays and inconsistencies.
  • Limited Automation There were few tools available to automate repetitive tasks, making it difficult to scale software development.
  • Slow and Unreliable Delivery Releases were infrequent and often buggy, causing frustration for both developers and users. Next, let’s take a look at some specific examples of the challenges faced in the pre-DevOps era.